Page:Barbour--Joan of the ilsand.djvu/20

8 eighteen. Allwyn? No, she wouldn't have a man's name. Eileen—that was it. Something happened to her—or was it some other girl?

His right hand was hurting all the time, and constant swimming did not improve it. Murdock did that with his chin.

The swimmer rested many times during the day, but the sea dazzled him. There were half a dozen suns, all blinding and scorching, and yet he knew that there was really only one sun, and that he must keep on swimming as long as he could pick out the genuine from the counterfeits, or lose his sense of direction altogether. He was still worrying absurdly about the girl with the greenish eyes when the sun set, in what was clearly a gigantic bath of blood.

After that the man grew confused. The thirst was there all the time. He moistened his tongue deliberately once or twice with the water that wet his face when he took an awkward stroke, but it did not mend matters. Also his right hand was very painful now. These things he understood only in a dreamy fashion. His predominant thought—when he did think rationally—was that he had to keep his heavy arms and legs moving, because somewhere ahead there was land. His brain seemed to have slipped a cog on the subject of time. He tried to calculate how many hours this struggle had been going on, but he could not work it out, and